Nursery to admit older siblings

[pspsps]

Very casual message from preschooler DC's nursery today to say they will be admitting older siblings.

No information on age limits or number of places or which room the older children will be in or any transmission mitigation measures.

This seems at odds with the purpose of school closures / public health policy?

I am also clinically vulnerable and was already concerned with nursery's relaxed approach to COVID, things are running entirely as normal with essentially no mitigation measures in place.

I recognise I am looking at this from the perspective of not having an older child.

If you have a child in nursery how would you view this?

To answer some questions:

The message wasn't clear about ages but implied it would be for children aged 12 and under. I have asked for clarification

Was specifically quoted as being for children of non key workers, who don't qualify for a school space at the moment

For those who would be happy with this - many of you are referring to 'normal' non Covid times. I understand where you are coming from with that. But the government has decided that primary aged kids can't be in school (unless key worker, vulnerable etc), in order to bring R down, bring infections and hospitalisations down. If it was deemed safe (from a public health perspective) to have primary aged kids in childcare settings they would still be in school . Can you explain why it is okay to have those children in nursery instead?

I don't agree there is no increased risk due to them being siblings, because leaving nurseries open is based on preschoolers being less likely to transmit Covid, older kids are more likely to get and transmit

But it's interesting to see that many people would be fine with this plan.

Can you explain why it is okay to have those children in nursery instead?

Because they are a sibling of a child already in the nursery. The risk applies to the whole household, so having 2 children from one household is a very tiny increase in risk.

If you look at it from a whole community perspective, having both children in 1 setting is lower risk that having them in 2 separate settings.

E.g. I have 4 kids - 2 in school and 2 in nursery, The 2 in nursery are in different classes but if all 4 were in nursery they'd put them all in the same class (or 2 older together and 2 younger together depending on numbers) and the risk of covid has been almost halved because my kids are being exposed to half the children.

If the older ones were currently not in school but were being looked after by our "child care bubble" or a childminder, the risk would be higher because of the different settings.

I'd expect my money back, it's definitely not the environment you are paying for and it does increase risk.

Because some parents must be asking for it, having young primary kids at home when you are trying to work is torture / neglect for the children. Older primary kids are more likely to entertain themselves get on with school work.

@Lockdownbear

Because some parents must be asking for it, having young primary kids at home when you are trying to work is torture / neglect for the children. Older primary kids are more likely to entertain themselves get on with school work.

Not really the point though. If it was safe for primary age kids to be in childcare they would currently be in school

Gov has decided not safe (on a community level), and removed provision despite how difficult this makes things for working parents- ie the situation is desperate

Nursery replacing provision undos the government's public health aims of shutting schools

Also the nursery hasn't said anything about restricting it to younger kids

I’d be fine with this, my six year old loves babies and toddlers, he’s great with his three year old brother, they play very well together and he’s brought my youngest on in development. I would see it as a positive but I can see how not having older siblings you may be sceptical.

Our childminder has had an older sibling the entire lockdown which I'm fine with, the parents aren't key workers. As far as I'm concerned my child is already mixing with the younger sibling, so mixing with the older sibling too doesn't make our "bubble" of contacts any bigger.

If it was safe for primary age kids to be in childcare they would currently be in school

I thought the division between school versus nursery was about the fact that kids in nurseries are in very small groups compared with kids in a school, not about the physical development of the kids themselves?

I guess parents can get mad if they want to, but honestly, given that this is a pandemic, I think they should be glad they are getting any kind of childcare at all.

In my experience, tiny little ones learn so much from observing older children. My toddler copies everything her older sister does, whether it's language, using the loo, or trying to "do homework" (=scribble on pieces of paper).

@Same4Walls Unless this is limited to children only up to reception age I honestly cannot see how the nursery would be a suitable environment for an older child. I can't imagine they would have adequate facilities or the capacity for oldrr children
What on earth are you talking about. It’s very common for nurseries to look after children up to age 11.

Here in the US my kids nursery did this. Allowed older kids from “their families” to attend and they do their remote learning there. So we were very lucky that 5 year old DS was able to go back along with 3 year old DD

What on earth are you talking about. It’s very common for nurseries to look after children up to age 11.

Of course it's common for some nurseries to have provision for older children often in the form of after school ot holiday care. The key word though is some nurseries. It's clear from the OP that her childs nursery doesn't currently provide this care and my response was based on het nursery. Because they don't already have provision for older children it's very unlikely they are going to have adequatet space and facilities to accommodate older children.

In my experience, locally, it tends to be the less than steller nurseries that offer this kind of set up as they’re the ones that lost custom during Lockdown as parents didn’t trust them. Try and shop around for a better nursery.

I wouldn’t be happy with this. I’m not even happy with dc going to nursery at all at the moment, so I’ve pulled them out for a couple of months. If you are CV would that be a possibility? I’ve never ever heard of nursery looking after older children. Seems peculiar to me. Maybe the thinking behind it is that some of the staff can brings their kids along to work with them whilst they aren’t in school, thus keeping the staffing levels up and avoiding closure? If it was that sort of scenario it wouldn’t be so bad but a load of random older kids absolutely no way.

The older kids are hardly going to mix with babies. They'll be in separate rooms.

What do people assume older kids do in after school that nurseries can't provide?
They play games, build Lego, knex, younger kids play house, trains, cars, do crafts watch the odd film, run around outside. Ideally in summer they'll take them to different places but really it's not much different to a childminder having babies and doing wrap around.

Parents have made choices they have pulled kids out of nursery, other parents have less choice and would like kids looked after, the business needs to meet demand.

The older kids are hardly going to mix with babies. They'll be in separate rooms.

The OP has already said all the rooms are currently being used so it sounds like this nursery doesn't have any space to put older children without moving other children out of their current room.

What do people assume older kids do in after school that nurseries can't provide?

Toilets suitable for older children would be my first thought.

@Lockdownbear

The older kids are hardly going to mix with babies. They'll be in separate rooms.

What do people assume older kids do in after school that nurseries can't provide?
They play games, build Lego, knex, younger kids play house, trains, cars, do crafts watch the odd film, run around outside. Ideally in summer they'll take them to different places but really it's not much different to a childminder having babies and doing wrap around.

Parents have made choices they have pulled kids out of nursery, other parents have less choice and would like kids looked after, the business needs to meet demand.

Locally the nurseries doing this are the cheap needs improvement ones with 2 rooms max. As nobody uses these nurseries unless they have to, they have spaces in baby areas and that is where the older kids are put. They aren’t able to play with any age appropriate toys or touch / play with the babies and have to spend their time on seperate activities that aren’t led by an adult. The focus of the adults apparently is on the babies but I imagine if the older kids get violent or grabby with things there isn’t much they can do.

Er, I assume staff have to go to the toilet as well. Why can't they use the adult toilets?

They need to have suitable facilities or they wouldn't have a licence to take them. And they'd need to have suitable supervision/ stick to the correct ratios.

I do note Op says older siblings, given 3 years is about the average gap between children it probably means the siblings are still likely to be under 8.

For a nursery with only two rooms it makes sense to temporarily divide rooms so babies and toddlers are together and preschool and school together.

the (private) nursery on site of my daughter's primary provides wrap around care and holiday club care to primary school children and many of primary pupils who went to this nursery prefer attending there than the (cheaper) school holiday club provision. The older children don't mix with the nursery attendees but they do enjoy playing with familiar toys and seeing familiar staff.

Ok, so my children are teenagers now but if I think about it logically as if they were say age 2 and 6. I would need both of them in childcare to do my job, I might manage my work from home days with a 6 year old but I’m out of the house sometimes too. I would opt for putting them both with the same childcare (same as I did at those ages but with the added not as much covid exposure factor). So I’d be delighted with this provision.
On the other hand if I thought back to when I just had one child, I’d probably be less keen. Much like I used to avoid soft play and the park in the school holidays when they were full of horrible big kids.

Yes for us it’s easier to send them both to the same place. One drop off and pick up. Familiar staff and kids as my DS was there until March as this is his first year of school. They offer holiday care for school age kids in normal times.

Paying through the nose yes, but school is not open. And my kids are in one setting so one set of germs instead of 2.

I can imagine if I was in the position where I didn’t have an older child I might not be so keen with these extra kids attending, but so many people have pulled their kids that the nursery needs to make money. And if it’s the same family then the risk from covid is the same whether one kid goes or 3

Also our schools never really reopened (USA) so it’s been e learning since august and it will most likely go on to the end of the school year.